Colombia enters Copa America hoping it can build on last year’s World Cup, as it instantly became one of casual fans favorite teams. Colombia is led by Golden Boot winner James Rodriguez, and the 23-year-old will continue to get his looks and put pressure on a defense. Colombia is filled with playmakers who love to push the pace and play this free flowing style of soccer. Juan Guillermo Cuadrado, Teofilo Gutierrez and Luis Muriel give Rodriguez the offensive support he needs. Colombia’s defense wasn’t exactly great to begin with, but now there’s glaring concerns with the retirement of Mario Yepes. Colombia can compete against anybody with its offensive attack but how it holds up defensively will determine just how far this team can go.

Venezuela is probably the only team in group C that relies heavily on its defense to win matches. Venezuela has several quality defenders who set the tone for this squad, including Roberto Rosales and Tomas Rincon, guys who are also used to playing against great competition. Venezuela also has some offense it can turn to, as Salomon Rondon has been a nightmare for Zenit Saint Petersburg and Nicolas Fedor has found the net 10 times for his national team. However, Venezuela is going to sit back and play a not to lose style until offensive chances present itself. The obvious concern for Venezuela is the lack of previous Copa America success, as it's allowed 155 goals and scored just 36 in 51 matches, which doesn’t exactly scream dark horse candidate.

Venezuela heads into this match in good form, but has to really lockdown on the defensive end if it even has a shot to force a draw. This should be a competitive match, but Colombia to just too deep offensively and should find the net a couple of times.

To give our wager more value, I’m taking Colombia to win by two goals.

Randy Chambers

6/12/2015, 3:56 PM (EDT) 12/16/2018, 7:41 PM (EST)

Randy Chambers has been with Sports Chat Place since 2014 and covers everything from the NFL to WNBA and tennis. Nobody works harder in this business in terms of content produced and amount of sports covered. Formerly a lead college football writer with Bleacher Report and has had his work featured at Fox Sports, CBS Sports and various other outlets.

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